At General Cushman’s direction, the division G-3 (Operations Section) began stressing the significance of counterinsurgency training at all echelons of the division. Unconventional warfare training soon became an integral part of the training schedules at every echelon. Under this program the various infantry battalions were required to conduct an extended battalion-sized counterguerrilla operation, and to report to the G-3 on the progress of their efforts.[3-15] The FMFPac On-The-Job Training program and the 3d Marine Division’s new approach to training complemented each other in several ways. Whereas the OJT program helped create an awareness of counterguerrilla operations among individual Marine officers and noncommissioned officers, the division’s training programs achieved the same results at the staff and battalion level. At points the two programs overlapped to the further benefit of the 3d Marine Division. Attuned to the nature of guerrilla warfare and the problems involved in countering the guerrilla, the officers and noncommissioned officers who returned from OJT assignments in Vietnam provided assistance in planning and supervising the division’s counterinsurgency training programs. Short of actual commitment to combat in a guerrilla-type environment, it is doubtful that any other combination of training could have better prepared the 3d Marine Division for a future assignment in Vietnam. _American Decisions at the Close of 1961_ The progressive erosion of the government’s strength and the steady growth of the Viet Cong during 1961 prompted President Kennedy to dispatch his special military advisor, General Maxwell D. Taylor, to Vietnam in mid-October. Taylor, who had retired in the late 1950s after having served as Chief of Staff of the Army, carried the following instructions from the president: I should like you to proceed to Saigon for the purpose of appraising the situation in South Vietnam, particularly as it concerns the threat to the internal security and defense of that country and adjacent areas. After you have conferred with the appropriate United States and South Vietnamese authorities, including the Commander in Chief, Pacific, I would like your views on the courses of action which our Government might take at this juncture to avoid a further deterioration in the situation in South Vietnam; and eventually to contain and eliminate the threat to its independence.[3-16]